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What happens if the drives develop bit rot over those 16 months preventing them from ever being decrypted? Based on the wording of what he is in contempt of, it
by hysan 10y ago
What happens if the drives develop bit rot over those 16 months preventing them from ever being decrypted? Based on the wording of what he is in contempt of, it sounds like he would sit in jail until death. To me, it sounds like the prosecution is trying to play a word game to get around 5th amendment protections.
- digler999 10y agoinvestigators image drives, they dont work with the originals.
- hysan 10y agoI know that, but read the exact wording they used to define why he is in contempt and what he has to do. That's the important part. But I'll play along with your pedantic game. First, the wording says to give over his computer and hard drives. What if those hard drives failed? He can't handover the literal hard drives anymore. Ok, you say it can be any hard drive then. The court will provide replacements and the disk images. If investigators providing those materials is allowed as a means to allow Rawls to complete said task, that means Rawls is allowed access to materials the court (or prosecution or him or some other entity) deems necessary. Not a big deal, right? Wrong. Going down that rabbit hole can lead to a slippery slope where courts can abuse the power of the wording to indefinitely contain anyone given that they assign them a task that "can" be completed with the given materials. However, the feasibility of the task may or may not be reasonable. It's the twisting of the law through evasive language that is the problem here. They are deliberately avoiding the 5th Amendment by deploying language that skirts the letter of the law and ignores the intention/spirit of it.